


won't let you fall

by jackals



Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: M/M, Mutual Pining, post cfvg next but pre cfvg z, the obligatory skating date fic because we all deserve fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-04-16 14:13:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14166636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jackals/pseuds/jackals
Summary: kazuma specializes in retiring his own rearguards, being late to important events, and running away from his feelings. too bad he can’t run nearly as well in skates.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > Chrono approaches the edge of the rink and pokes the surface with one skate. “Skating would be so much easier if it were like Vanguard.”  
> Kazuma scowls, eyeing the ice warily. “Don’t be stupid, it can’t possibly be that hard.”  
> 

After the curry challenge fiasco, Kazuma doesn’t really trust any of Taiyou’s ideas. It had taken _weeks_ for his tongue to recover from the chilli pepper assault and now there’s a patch of dead nerves on the roof of his mouth that he’s pretty sure will never feel again. That said, he still finds himself sitting on a bench with Chrono, Taiyou, and a cut on his thumb at way-too-early-to-be-awake o’clock on a Saturday morning.

Taiyou frowns as he bends down to tie his laces. “What do you mean it’s too early to be awake? It’s noon, when are you even going to sleep?”

“Forget that,” Chrono exclaims, fumbling a band-aid from his pocket. He clearly has his priorities straight. “Kazuma, your thumb! Why on earth would you grab your skates _by the blade?_ ”

Kazuma sputters. “I didn’t think they would be that sharp!”

The outdoor rink is far from empty, bustling with a steady stream of parents and wobbling toddlers, but Taiyou and Chrono’s laughs carry over the din. Kazuma tries to tug his scarf further up his nose with his uninjured hand, partly so he could avoid their teasing and partly because the rink is a lot colder than he thought it would be.

He really should have listened to his mom when she told him to wear a thicker jacket. His mom had been so excited when she heard about him joining Striders, something about him “finally making friends”. She’d been pestering him non-stop when she found out about Taiyou’s skating plans and pestering him even more when she found out that Chrono was going to be there (“Maa-kun! You need to dress up nicer if you ever want to impress your crush!”), so Kazuma had no choice but to hightail it out of the house to escape.

 _Jeez_ , he thinks, pressing a finger to the cut and ignoring the sting. _All this trouble just to fall face-first on some ice and catch a cold._

Unlike Kazuma, Taiyou is bundled up appropriately in poofy winter jackets, scarves, and mittens, like most of the other elementary schoolers at the rink ( _“I’m in middle school!”_ ). Chrono, on the other hand, is wearing even less than Kazuma was. His usual varsity jacket was a lot of things, like blindingly red and offensively good at bringing out the definition of his shoulders, but warm was not one of them. Even so, that idiot had the _nerve_ to not even look cold. The two of them seemed at ease on the rink's bench, perfectly happy to laugh at Kazuma's pain.

Listen, Kazuma makes mistakes. Some of those mistakes are things like calling four Swordbreakers from deck without enough soul or using up all his counterblasts by first stride. Other mistakes include passing up Kazumi’s offers to take him ice-skating when he was a kid – he did _not_ know that those skills would come in handy at later times in his life _like now._ The worst mistake of all was joining Striders and being dragged onto these spontaneous trips with Taiyou and Chrono _who is now holding his hand, oh my God._

Kazuma snatches his thumb away from Chrono, half-applied band-aid flapping uselessly. His hand tingles where Chrono had been smoothing down the cloth. “Shindou, what the hell, it’s just a little cut. It’s fine!” He hopes his face isn’t as red as it feels. Judging by the glint in Taiyou’s eyes, his face is definitely as red as it feels.

“You need to cover it or it could get infected or something,” Chrono presses. “C’mon, give me your hand, I’ve got a band-aid.”

Kazuma opens his mouth to insist that he could put it on himself for the sake of his mental and emotional wellbeing, but Chrono fixes those earnest green eyes on him and – well, what is he supposed to do in the face of that? He surrenders his hand and tries not to focus on how warm Chrono’s palm is.

Taiyou shoots him a grin over the top of Chrono’s ridiculous swirl. “Yeah Kazuma-san, we wouldn’t want it to get _infected._ ”

Chrono presses down the bandage one last time and Kazuma yanks away the second he’s done. His hand feels like it’s burning. “You are terrible,” Kazuma grumbles. He isn’t sure whether he’s talking to Chrono or Taiyou or himself.

Taiyou finishes with his skates, fancy hockey skates that he brought from home, and props his head on his gloved hands with an innocent look. “Who, me?”

“More importantly,” Chrono interjects, a mischievous smirk beginning to spread across his face, “you never told us that you didn’t know how to skate.”

“Hey,” Kazuma protests. “How do you know I can’t skate? I haven’t even set foot on the ice yet.”

“So, you can skate?”

“Not even a little bit, but you had no way of knowing that. I don’t want to pay money just to fall on my face, I call that smart decision-making.”

“Well don’t worry, Kazuma-san,” Taiyou pipes up. “You won’t fall if you hold Chrono-san’s hand…”

Kazuma very resolutely does not look in Chrono’s direction. Taiyou is the king of shitty suggestions but this one takes the cake because there is nothing that he would rather do less. Sure, his traitor brain may be conjuring images of Chrono’s fingers on his hand, but that is _not what he wants_ no matter what Taiyou says. But it’s okay because Shindou is pretty oblivious. Nothing gets through that dense skull of his, so there’s no way that he’ll realize that Taiyou was saying, that Taiyou was implying –

“Ha…ha…” Chrono’s voice is uncomfortably strained. “Definitely….”

Oh. _Oh._ Kazuma wonders if there’s a nearby roof for him to jump off.

Chrono clears his throat. “But um Taiyou. Since you’re done changing into your skates, you can go ahead onto the ice first. Kazuma and I still need to put on our rentals.”

Taiyou pushes off the bench, careful not to jostle the kid beside him. “Alright,” he says, even though he looks a bit uncertain. He glances guiltily between the two of them. “I’ll catch up with the two of you later then.”

 _You coward_ , Kazuma seethes. _Come back and face the mess you made like a_ true _Gold Paladin._

But no, Taiyou is good enough at self-preservation to avoid a scene of disaster when he sees one. He gives them one last wave and takes off like a shot, leaving damage control to Kazuma who momentarily forgets his betrayal to stare at the way that Taiyou jets across the ice, weaving between people with ease. What the fuck? How could he move that fast without falling with nothing but two knives strapped to his feet?

But now that Taiyou was gone, that left the three of them: Chrono, Kazuma, and Kazuma’s mountain of unrequited gay feelings.

“Glaring at your skates isn’t going to make them magically strap themselves to your feet, y’know.”

“They were getting there until you ruined it,” Kazuma retorted, frowning a bit harder at the skates out of spite if nothing else. If he looked at the skates then he wouldn’t have to have to look at Chrono’s face, now that he knew Kazuma _liked him_ and all.

Kazuma reaches unseeingly for a skate. Taiyou had thrown subtlety out the window and Kazuma had been so _obvious_ and wow he hated himself, how could he not see that Chrono had been uncomfortable? “Ha…ha… (I) definitely (regret meeting Kazuma Shouji) …” – god these are a lot of laces.

It wasn’t a big deal, Kazuma reasons, tugging the laces tighter. He would just need to transfer out of Harumi High, change his name, and move to another country. Avoid the colour red for the rest of his life. Small things.

Kazuma almost has a heart attack at the light touch on his shoulder.

“Hey Kazuma?” Oh no, Chrono is looking at him with a little furrow between his eyes. “Are you alright?”

“Obviously.” _Obviously._ “Just trying to figure out how to stand in these skates or whatever.” Which wasn’t exactly a lie, but he couldn’t have made that sound less cool if he tried, he should really stop sabotaging himself.

Chrono frowns at his feet thoughtfully. “The trick is not to think about it. Like –” he heaves himself off the bench and takes a step forward, “– this. Oh hey, it’s a lot easier than I thought!”

 “You know what, I’ll just stay here. On this nice, structurally stable bench.”

“That’s no fun, I thought you started actually trying now. What happened to ‘You changed me!’ or ‘I will do my best!’.”

Kazuma is having a stroke, he’s going to die, would Chrono notice if he just lay down on the floor and never got back up? Judging by his expression that was completely oblivious to the serious damage he was inflicting on Kazuma’s heart, Chrono wasn’t going to notice anything. Breaking news: Kazuma Shouji found dead in a ditch.

“I – I’m – skating isn’t Vanguard, Shindou!”

Chrono sighs. He approaches the edge of the rink and pokes the surface with one skate. “It would be so much easier if it was though.”

Kazuma scowls, eyeing the ice warily. “Don’t be stupid, it can’t possibly be that hard.”

“Right.” Wait, was that a tremor in Chrono’s voice? That was definitely a tremor in Chrono’s voice. Oh god, did Kazuma say something wrong again? Maybe it was the thing he said about skating being easy. Maybe Chrono has a tragic skating backstory that unleashed a hoard of tragic skating memories because of Kazuma’s throwaway comment. Or maybe Kazuma is just a terrible, terrible person who can’t do anything right.

Chrono is still talking. “Yeah, it can’t – you’re right. Skating is just walking on ice. Not hard at all.  Okay, we can do this.”

Kazuma is only half paying attention, trying to think of a way to apologize _for ever opening my mouth and saying words because I suck at it and I like you so much it makes it hard to think so I really can’t be blamed for my lack of a filter but I mean you know that now so maybe ignore every other word that comes out of my mouth_ –

Steeling his shoulders, Chrono marches towards the edge of the rink with an expression not unlike the face he makes right before doing a triple drive check. He puts one foot on the ice, gingerly takes his hand off the wall, and the next thing Kazuma knows Chrono is sprawled across the ice face-first as his leg slips out from under him. Kazuma has to blink twice to properly process what just happened.

“Wha – Shindou!” Kazuma hops off the bench without thinking and half runs to the edge of the rink.

Chrono unsticks his face from the ice with a lot of flailing arms and legs, gazing up at Kazuma like a turtle flipped on its back. “Hey, you managed to get off the bench.”

“Oh.” In his panic, Kazuma didn’t have time to worry about falling and just – moved. The padding on the floor kept the blades from slipping and Chrono was right, it really was easier if you didn’t think about it. “I guess I did.”

“I’m so proud of you.” Chrono grins up at him, but Kazuma knows better than to be fooled by his flippant tone; Chrono’s cheeks are tinged pink with embarrassment. He makes an adorable picture with his upside-down sheepish face slowly turning more and more red, and Kazuma lets out a helpless laugh.

“Jeez, you are such a loser. What the hell was that?” He grips the rink wall tightly with one hand and scoots up in tiny steps until the tips of his skates skim the ice. Smiling, Kazuma holds out the other for Chrono to grab. “Come on, let’s get you up.”

Instead of taking it, Chrono stares at him wide-eyed as if he had been struck on the head by a frying pan. There are only so many seconds that you can stand there with your hand outstretched before it becomes equal parts sad and pathetic. Kazuma discovers that the limit is five seconds.

“Shindou…?”

Chrono blinks and coughs twice, looking carefully away. “Nothing, it’s nothing.”

His cheeks look pinker than before, Kazuma notes distantly. Chrono props himself up and snags Kazuma’s outstretched hand and _oh_ his hand is so warm. Kazuma wasn’t expecting that. He wants to hold it forever. He wants to let go and sprint away in the other direction.

He settles for tightening his grip and pulling Chrono to his feet.

Except Chrono’s skate snags a chip in the ice and Kazuma’s hand slips and they go down in a tangle of limbs and a lot of swearing. Kazuma faceplants into an unidentifiable something which temporarily stops the string of profanity. He starts back up again as soon as he’s able.

“Motherfucking piece of –”

In his peripheral vision, Kazuma sees a few mothers covering tiny ears and giving them the evil eye. _I didn’t ask for this,_ he wants to yell at them through a mouthful of Chrono’s jacket. _I’m suffering way more than you are._

And he is, he really _really_ is. There’s a bruise on his tailbone, Chrono’s knee is jammed into his gut, and Kazuma is pretty sure that the body part that his face ended up on is Chrono’s chest. Maybe it’s his stomach, Kazuma isn’t really sure which option would be worse for his blood pressure so he tries really hard not to find out. He also tries not to notice how the ice is so cold and Chrono is so warm underneath him – this boy is a furnace. Ideal for cuddling. Wait, no.

“– thrice damned, godforsaken _asshole_.”

Kazuma feels Chrono shaking under him and yeah that’s definitely his chest. Laughter would feel different if he was lying on a stomach. Maybe it’s Chrono’s diaphragm. It’s a lot easier to forget what and _who_ he’s lying on if he just thinks about it objectively. Muscle and bone. He learned the muscular system in biology and he’s pretty sure he can name all the parts: pectoral, abdominal, clavicle –

“So, like, is that all directed at me or the ice…?”

– deltoid, inte _rcostal, thyrohyoid,sternohyoidomohyoid_ –

“At you,” Kazuma replies immediately, trying to manoeuvre himself out of this lose-lose situation. His left hand is stuck under what might be Chrono’s arm and he twists to tug it free. “Definitely at you. By the way, move you idiot, I’m stuck.”

“You’re the one _crushing me_ , you’re heavy!”

Turning his head, Kazuma is about to retort when – wow, those sure are Chrono’s eyes. And nose. And face. This distance between their lips is a lot smaller than Kazuma was emotionally prepared to handle.

Green and red are stupid colours, he decides. When he finds his voice again, he is going to tell Chrono this. Just, maybe later, when forming words that aren’t _kissmekissmekissmekissme_ doesn’t feel like such a herculean task.

Although his heart is trying to kick its way out of his ribcage, Kazuma stays perfectly still. He’s good at that. After all, he’s had a lot of practice with wanting but never having, wanting but never _taking_ even when sometimes the longing was so bad that it felt as if he would be torn apart from the sheer emptiness of it.

Because here’s the thing: Kazuma has been taught and taught and taught not to take. Not to take up his father’s love (that was for his brother), not to take up his brother’s time (that was for his duties as the Onimaru heir), not to take up space (that was for those who have earned a place in this household, _not you, you worthlessworthlessworthless thing_ ). The sensation of _something_ in his palms but refusing to wrap his fingers around it – this is familiar. This is easy.

The cost-benefit analysis is simple. Kazuma does want to kiss Chrono: he wants to know if Chrono’s lips are as soft as they look, if he kisses the way he fights (all fiery determination and honest smiles, tugging at Kazuma until he has no choice but to follow). If he would be okay with Kazuma finding out. Kazuma does _not_ want to kiss Chrono: he will burst into flames, Chrono will hate him, and the world will implode.

His mouth is right there.

In the end, it doesn’t matter because Kazuma gets hit in the face with a spray of snow before his body can finish activating its flight or fight response. Then he realizes that he is still lying in the middle of an ice rink _on top of his crush_ and scrambles to _not be doing that._

“T-Taiyou!” Chrono sputters after they are successfully untangled and upright. There is a fine layer of snow dusting his head like powdered sugar and it’s so cute that it makes Kazuma want to punch something _._ “What was that for?”

“You guys are blocking the exit,” Taiyou says, pulling up to a hard stop in front of them and showering them with ice shavings a second time. “But also I saw you fall and got here as fast as I could. Chrono-san, Kazuma-san, are you two alright?”

“I’m fine,” Kazuma answers quickly. “We’re fine.”

“Why are you talking so loudly?”

“No reason,” Kazuma says, lowering his voice. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Uh-huh.” Taiyou is trying to fight off the grin that threatens his casual expression and is failing miserably. “I’ll bet. You guys looked real cozy over here.”

Chrono’s face is turning an impressive shade of red, Kazuma thinks. It almost matches his hair.

“I – I, I just fell!”

“Yeah, Shindou is absolute shit at skating,” Kazuma interjects, desperately trying to change the subject.

“Really?” Taiyou peers at Chrono, who has suddenly taken to studying the ceiling with interest. “Chrono-san told _me_ that he was _great_ at skating.”

There is a beat of silence.

“I may have been exaggerating,” Chrono mumbles. “A tiny, tiny bit.”

“You almost killed me,” Kazuma points out.

“You didn’t die,” Chrono protests. “But yeah, I may have been lying a tiny, tiny bit.”

Taiyou is about to return to the fact that the two of them were _cuddling on ice_ when a thought occurs to him. He holds up his hands.

“Wait a minute,” he says slowly. “So both of you have no idea how to skate?”

They nod.

“And neither of you thought that it might be a good idea to tell me this before I suggested that we go to an ice rink?”

Kazuma shrugs. “When have I ever given off the impression that I know what I’m doing?”

Chrono scratches his head. “Well, I guess I figured that it couldn’t be that hard?”

Taiyou stares at them for a solid minute and breathes a deep sigh. “How did we win the U20?”

This is a very fair question; Kazuma has to think on it for a bit. “Honestly, I still don’t really believe that we won,” he confesses.

Chrono nudges his arm, smiling sincerely at him with those ridiculously green eyes and Kazuma swears on his life that he can hear a heavenly choir singing. “Hey, you’d better believe it. We were pretty awesome.” Taiyou clears his throat. “I meant Striders,” Chrono adds quickly. “Our team. We, the team Striders, were pretty awesome – wait, is that Hiroki?”

Taiyou rolls his eyes. “Nice try, Chrono-san, but go on, I want to hear more about how _awesome_ you think _someone_ is –”

“Seriously, right there.” Chrono points at a very familiar shock of electric-blue hair zipping around the center of the ice. “Name one other person you know who would go around handing out speeding tickets on a public skating rink.”

Taiyou follows Chrono’s finger and Kazuma can tell the exact second that he sees Hiroki because his face lights up like a neon sign. Kazuma couldn’t believe that Taiyou was giving _him_ so much shit for having a crush. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

“Oh, you’re right! I think I’m going to go over and say hi,” Taiyou says. Kazuma resists the urge to mention how Taiyou’s hopping a little on the tip of his skates because he’s a good friend who does not tease infatuated elementary schoolers even though said infatuated elementary schoolers are mean and do tease him. “Do you guys want to come?”

“I’ll come,” Chrono agrees. “I haven’t seen him in a while.”

“I can skate us over,” Taiyou says. “Here, grab onto my shoulders.”

Chrono grumbles, “I can just skate myself –”

Taiyou gives him a _look._ Chrono grabs his shoulders.

They look as if they’re trying to act out the prompts “height difference” and “two-person conga line” in a game of charades.

Kazuma can picture it: Taiyou racing around the ice with a serene smile on his face while Chrono hangs on for dear life. He’s been skirting a thin line between hilarity and nervous breakdown this whole day and this cursed image is the thing that finally pushes him over the edge. He loses it, doubling over while clutching his sides and gasping for breath. Every time he thinks he might almost be over the comedy, he takes one more look at the pair of them and starts wheezing again.

“You two,” he gasps, “look ridiculous.”

“Hey Kazuma-san.” Taiyou has a glint in his eye that is making Kazuma regret laughing at him and Chrono. “Do you want to come talk to Hiroki-san too? I’ll skate us all over, just grab onto Chrono-san’s waist.”

That was a terrible idea in so many ways that Kazuma couldn’t even begin to wrap his mind around the sheer impossibility of that suggestion. He’ll give it to Taiyou though, it does manage to kill the laughter. Maybe he could accept Taiyou’s offer another time, when the thought of wrapping his _arms_ around Chrono’s _waist_ wasn’t the emotional equivalent of slamming his head repeatedly against a wall.

As it was, it was easy for him to reply, “Not in your life. I’m going to make smart choices, go buy some hot chocolate from a concession stand, and never set foot on a skating rink again.”

“You’ve been on the ice for all of five minutes,” Chrono says, frowning.

“Exactly and that has been five minutes too many.” Kazuma holds up his bandaged thumb. "Say hi to Hiroki for me."

As Kazuma slowly inches his way towards the rink door, he hears Taiyou whisper, “You didn’t need to pretend to know how to skate, if you wanted to impress him there were better ways to do it –” and a violent hushing sound. Kazuma takes a second to wonder who they’re talking about before jerking his mind away from that black hole of a thought.

Hot chocolate. He is going to go drink some hot chocolate, nurse his bruises, and forcibly repress all his memories of today’s incident. (Which incident?) _All of them._

Those concession stands had better have whipped cream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm @dragabyssluard on twitter!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > It turns out that the concession stands do have whipped cream. For that, Kazuma is eternally grateful. 

It turns out that the concession stands do have whipped cream. For that, Kazuma is eternally grateful.

Not that he manages to taste it – all of it dissolved into his hot chocolate because he was too busy watching Hiroki and Taiyou skate circles around Chrono. But that’s on him, not the vendors.

Kazuma stirs the sad remains of cream into his drink and, with an almost guilty conscience, glances across the arena to where his friends are having fun. Taiyou is elbowing Chrono’s side while Hiroki says something to him with a smirk. They glide away, grinning like madmen, when Chrono throws his hands up in the air in protest and Kazuma imagines that he can hear their laughter echoing across the ice. He quickly lowers his gaze.

He’s being ridiculous. He was the one who chose not to join in so it’s not fair of him to resent his friends for being functional human beings who don’t make fools of themselves on the daily or feel claustrophobic around a grand total of three people. Kazuma can’t remember when being alone became easier than being around people but he can remember making up excuses to get out of hanging out after school even though _really Kazuma, it’s been ages since we’ve seen you_. So he kept turning down invitations, stopped making conversation, and then it was a little easier to breathe. It was lonelier too, but there was nothing that he could do about that.

Chrono and Taiyou, he knew, were not like that. Joining Striders sometimes felt like being the answer in a game of ‘Circle what doesn’t belong’: Chrono, Taiyou and that unsociable Vanguard novice who was holding back the entire team. It was Taiyou and his undefeatable smile or Chrono and his…Chrono-ness. Kazuma doesn’t think that there’s a word for it exactly, this bone-deep conviction that Chrono would be able to pull the stars from the sky if he really wanted to.

And then there was him: sleeping in, misplaying, and bursting in out-of-breath and sweaty to important competitions after chasing the bus for three blocks.

Kazuma might not be able to laugh like Taiyou or inspire like Chrono, but brooding at an empty concession stand while sipping hot chocolate that has long gone cold? That’s his special talent. He should get a gold medal for this.

Something red plops into the seat beside him and promptly sprawls across half of Kazuma’s booth. He manages to snatch his hot chocolate away before it spills, but it’s a close call. Lives could have been lost.

Chrono seems to be unaware of his narrow brush with death. Instead, he tilts his head towards Kazuma with an empty look in his eyes, as if he’s lived through a war. “I’m never skating with Taiyou ever again.”

Kazuma now has approximately two seconds to pull himself together and remember how to form words with his vocal cords because that’s how a normal conversation works. Which he could absolutely do, if his heart could _please_ stop trying to jump its way out of his throat. He wants to press a hand to his chest like an old man, but he can’t because he has a reputation to maintain. Maybe if he opens his mouth he won’t say something stupid and flirty like –

“Giving up already, Shindou?” Too late.

Chrono laughs, the sound half-muffled by the way his cheek is pressed against his sleeve. Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to notice that Kazuma _fucked up_. “I had enough of hitting the ice face-first. ‘Figured that I should stop before I broke something permanently.”

“That’d be a shame,” Kazuma says seriously, thinking of Chrono’s face. There is still a heaviness pressing against his sternum that won’t quite ease, but around Chrono it gets lighter. It’s a little easier to breathe. “Hey, they’ve got hot chocolate over there if you want to forget all your painful memories. There’s whipped cream.”

“Nah,” Chrono answers. “Why would I go buy my own when I can just –” With the speed of a master criminal, he props his head up with one hand and uses the other one to swipe what’s left of Kazuma’s hot chocolate and his sanity. “– steal yours?”

Putting his mouth on the edge of the cup, he has the _audacity_ to give Kazuma a wink.

Kazuma has to wrestle with the sudden reappearance of his fight-or-flight instinct that is swinging solidly towards flight because _what the fuck_. _That should be illegal_ , half of him thinks helplessly _._ The other half yells, _INDIRECT KISS._

He does his absolute best to ignore the second half.

Kazuma doesn’t exactly notice that next to him Chrono has turned an alarming shade of pink and suddenly lost all will to live because _he really did that what the fuck was he thinking_ , but it’s only because he’s too busy trying not to have a meltdown _._

The silence is half a second from crossing into awkward is-that-flirting-or-am-I-just-pining territory.

Kazuma clears his throat and does his absolute best to put his eyes on something that wasn’t Chrono’s mouth. “Okay, have fun drinking your cold hot chocolate then. Lukewarm chocolate.”

“Y-Yeah,” Chrono says, also looking at anything that is not Kazuma-shaped. His fingers are wrapped loosely around the cup. “I’ll do that.”

A little way from them, children are clacking their way across the rink, clutching at the wall with mittened hands. Skaters whirl by in a blur of nylon jackets and flashing silver blades. The arena speakers are humming the chorus of a pop song in the background. The world spins on.

Chrono is still turned away. Kazuma watches him, the brightness in his eyes as he tries to catch a glimpse of Taiyou and Hiroki in the crowd, the restlessness of his fingers tapping the rim of the cup. Because that’s Chrono: never still and always looking ahead, always chasing his goals without a trace of uncertainty. The overhead lights shift across his face and for a moment he looks untouchable, as if he’s already moving out of Kazuma’s reach.

 _I love you_ , Kazuma thinks, and the words press so closely against the back of his throat that it’s frightening. He can almost imagine breaking the silence with that first vowel, can trace the shape of it in the air –

“Hey.” Chrono is facing Kazuma again. He nudges Kazuma with his foot under the table, snapping him out of his reverie. Kazuma closes his mouth so quickly that he accidentally bites his tongue. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the whole skating thing earlier. And, you know, fell on you.”

“Hm?” Kazuma says, because that’s the only sound he can make with his tongue throbbing in pain. Which is honestly a small price to pay for _shutting up_ and _saving his dignity_ and _not turning this conversation into more of a train wreck_. He wants to communicate this to Chrono but, for some reason, Chrono is very determined to avoid his gaze no matter how hard Kazuma tries to catch Chrono’s eye.

“’Guess I didn’t want you to think I was lame,” Chrono mumbles. “But yeah. Sorry if I was acting a bit off this morning.”

Kazuma is so relieved that he forgets about his pain. “No, you’re good. I never even noticed –”

The lie dies in Kazuma’s throat as an epiphany hits him so hard it’s like angels materialized out of the rink’s fluorescent lights to smack him with a truth hammer. “Wait, so before. You were acting weird because you didn’t actually know how to skate and not because you knew that I liked you?”

Chrono chokes mid-sip on his not-so-hot chocolate. After he finishes coughing his lungs out, he lets out a strangled sound that Kazuma didn’t know humans could make. “Not because I knew that you _what_?”

The angels disappear.

“That I like...” _Think fast, Kazuma._ “Running away from you.”

Wait that didn’t come out right. “Sorry, give me a little more time to come up with this excuse.”

Abort fucking mission. “I’ll be–” He makes a vague motion at the ceiling, pushes away from the table and sprints for the exit.

Unfortunately, skates are not the best running shoes.

“K-Kazuma!” he hears, followed by the clatter of an abandoned hot chocolate cup and what is definitely the sound of pursuit. Some distant part of him comments that Chrono had better have had the sense to throw out that cup before taking off – _paper is recyclable_ , he can hear eight-year-old Kazumi scolding him – but Kazuma doesn’t have high hopes. He doesn’t want to go to jail for littering, but some sacrifices had to be made for the greater good.

Then it’s a matter of dodging waist-high toddlers and their parents on his very slow run towards the nearest exit. But because god hates him and he was moving at the pace of an ambitious snail at best, it’s not long before he feels a hand clamp on his shoulder. Honestly, he should have seen this coming but he wanted to try having a little more faith in the universe. He’ll never make that mistake again.

“Wait – Kazuma, I got you!”

Kazuma thinks, more than a little hysterically, _yeah, you sure do alright_ , because that is definitely Chrono’s hand putting an end to his mad dash to freedom.

“Look,” Kazuma starts before he’s even fully turned around, “I’m sorry, I never meant for it to end like this and if it’s better then I can quit the team, ‘cause it’s not like I want to make things uncomfortable or weird or –”

That’s as far as he gets before Chrono’s lips are on his and his brain effectively short-circuits.

Kazuma doesn’t think that Chrono knows what he’s doing, but then again neither does he. Their noses are pressed against each other, teeth clicking together because Chrono leaned in too quickly, and he has no idea how breathing is supposed to work when another person’s mouth is involved. Maybe he should play it safe and hold his breath, but that thought flies out the window when Chrono’s thumb ghosts across his cheek and he _gasps_ and it becomes a lot easier to go from there.

His hand is in Chrono’s hair. He has no idea how it got there, but that was a good idea, especially now that the world seems to be spinning and Kazuma is in danger of collapsing in a puddle on the floor.

“So,” Kazuma says when they finally pull away to catch their breath, “I’m guessing you like me too?”

Chrono gives him a flat look. “What gave it away?” They’re pressed close enough together that Kazuma can feel words more than hear them. Part of him notes that Chrono’s mouth is shiny and the thought that he did that makes him feel like spontaneously combusting.

“Just a guess,” he chokes out. “But damn Shindou, I thought you’d have better taste in guys.”

“I have great taste in guys,” Chrono argues. “Look, Exhibit A: plays Shadow Paladin, is cute. Which is definitely not the only reason I wanted you to join Striders, for the record.

“Also, you seemed alone,” Chrono adds, more seriously. “I knew what it was like to be alone. And I didn’t want you to have to be anymore.”

“Oh,” Kazuma manages to say. He feels a bit like crying, but he doesn’t think that would be very romantic, so he does the next best thing and leans in to kiss Chrono again. They’re getting a lot better at it, he thinks in a daze. Then Chrono tugs at his bottom lip and he stops thinking entirely.

This time it’s Chrono who breaks away, flushed and more than a little breathless.

“Okay, no way am I gonna be the only one to confess, so since when did you –” Chrono waves his hand in a vague gesture that tries to make up for the fact that his face is burning.

This confession thing is a lot harder to do from the talking side. Kazuma’s throat is closing up in an allergic reaction to feelings.

He shrugs it off and takes a deep breath. “I dunno, one day I walked into a card shop and bumped into some goofy guy with twirly hair who told me to believe in possibilities. And I couldn’t, at first, because it’d been a long time since I believed in anything. But, as it turns out, I could believe in him.”

“Hey Kazuma.” Chrono’s voice is soft. “Don’t take this the wrong way but I think I’m legally obligated to kiss you right now.”

They’re kissing again and it’s slower this time, gentler, as if they’re both scared that they’ll break.

Kazuma has never regretted anything more in his life, but he steels himself and detaches from Chrono’s mouth for the third time. To compensate, he wraps his hand around Chrono’s. “As much as I’d like to keep kissing, we left the cup on the table and we need to go back and recycle it.”

Kazuma is convinced that Chrono’s laugh should be a renewable energy source and he has proof: 1) good for the environment, 2) should be constantly replenished and 3) makes the whole room light up. Better than solar power.

Chrono looks at him, grinning. “Has anyone ever told you that you are the worst delinquent in the world?”

And that was completely unfair because Kazuma wasn’t trying to look like a delinquent per say. Just apathetic, dismissive, and untouchable which wasn’t necessarily delinquency, come on. “I mean you just did, technically.”

“Yes,” Chrono says. “‘Technically’. I’m sorry, but _how did you not realize that I like you_?”

“I can’t believe that _you_ never noticed that I like _you_ ,” Kazuma counters. “I was really obvious.”

Chrono stares at him. “I cuddled with you on a skating rink. _I_ _winked at you_.”

Kazuma sputters. “You also did that when we were being threatened by a gang!”

“I was flirting with you then and I’m flirting with you now,” Chrono says. “Just to clear things up.”

Up until this point, Kazuma wasn’t one hundred percent sure that this isn’t a dream. The idea that he could wake up any second without Chrono Shindou’s hand in his own was terrifying.

 “So.” Chrono taps his thumb lightly against their entwined fingers. “Wanna give skating another try?”

“Are you kidding? After that mess?”

“It was a disaster,” Chrono agrees. The corner of his mouth is twitching. “I really _fell_ for you.”

There is a beat of silence.

“I’m breaking up with you.”

“But we’ve only been dating for five minutes!”

“Well, it’s been fun.” Kazuma’s attempts to get up are thwarted by Chrono seizing his arm. Chrono’s laughing too hard to be an effective brake, but it doesn’t matter. There’s nowhere else Kazuma would rather be.

 “Don’t worry, Kazuma. I won’t let you fall.”

“Shut up.” Kazuma fights the urge to clap his hands over his cheeks but it’s too late. He can already tell that he’s lost the battle against the lovesick grin taking over his face. Lest he lose too hard, he shoves Chrono gently. “You can’t skate either, dumbass.”

“We can figure it out,” Chrono says, as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. “Trust me.”

Kazuma believes him.

 

* * *

 

 

On the other side of the rink, two tiny figures disrupt the ceaseless flow of skaters. Hiroki is pretty sure that they would have received some rude comments for stopping in the middle of the ice if it weren’t for the fact that they both barely reached most people’s shoulders and if Taiyou didn’t have a smile like the sun. As he watches Taiyou’s face light up with triumph, peering very obviously at the rink entrance where Chrono and Kazuma are holding hands, Hiroki decides that he’s okay with violating the rink’s no-stop rule… just this once.

“Oh finally.” Taiyou breathes a sigh of relief, spinning on his skates to face Hiroki. “I didn’t know how much more helpless pining I could take. And I used to be on a team with Shouma Shinonome and Rin Hashima.”

Hiroki thinks back to his Company days and all the time he spent hearing more about Shion Kiba than he’d ever wanted to hear in his life. “Wow, that’s really bad.”

Taiyou looks him dead in the eye. “I had to call so many ‘team meetings’ to get them to this point. I was starting to run out of date ideas and creative ways to duck out halfway through, so thank goodness you showed up.”

“But hey, at least it all worked out in the end,” Hiroki offers.

“Yeah.” Taiyou exhales slowly. Satisfied that he’ll get to tease his teammates mercilessly later, he nudges Hiroki’s arm. “Wanna see videos of Chrono-san and Kazuma-san skating straight into a wall?”

“Hell yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so it's been (checks watch) two months and i'm no longer dragabyssluard on twitter, but catch me at @primebanshees yelling about kazuchrono!
> 
> huge thank you to dragheartluard for helping me beta this, you saved my entire life ❤


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